Fact or Fiction: Oil Sands Reclamation is a critical review of current policies and practices governing oil sands reclamation. The researchers found woefully inadequate reclamation progress, astonishing rates of toxic tailings creation and no proven way to clean them up. After 41 years of oil sands mining operations in northern Alberta only 0.2% or one square kilometer of disturbed land is certified as reclaimed. The researchers also found that the security deposits made by companies to guarantee reclamation may be inadequate, forcing Canadians to foot the bill for reclaiming vast areas of mined and disturbed boreal forest.

This fact sheet provides an overview of key facts and figures from The Pembina Institute’s book Oil Sands Fever: The Environmental Implications of Canada’s Oil Sands Rush. The book examines the environmental effects of oil sands mining in northern Alberta. From toxic tailings ponds that already cover 130 square kilometres, to fresh water use and the direct impacts of digging 100 metre open pit mines over thousands of square kilometres of boreal forest, the report details the environmental problems and other challenges that oil sands mining poses to northern Alberta.

Big oil interests are scraping away hundreds of thousands of acres in North America’s Boreal forest to produce tar sands oil, and in the process consuming large amounts of natural gas and generating three times as much global warming pollution as conventional crude oil production. Greater efficiency and renewable fuels are far better, cleaner ways to meet our energy